U.S. to Retain Control of Parwan

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — The United States will remain in control of Afghanistan’s highest-profile prison well beyond January 2012, missing a key milestone in the plan to transfer judicial and detention operations to Afghans, U.S. military officials say. The transfer of the prison and its burgeoning population of detainees had been regarded as a critical marker of the war’s endgame — a sign that Afghan officials are ready to inherit institutions essential to the nation’s future. Afghanistan suicide blast kills northern police chief, wounds German commander Amid spate of attacks, U.S., Afghan troops thwart car bombing, retake building An emotional cycle as soldiers return home Clinton visits Pakistan to firm up new ties View all Items in this Story But U.S. officials decided that the Afghan legal system is still too weak to permit the handover of the Parwan Detention Center, even after the United States spent millions attempting to improve the country’s judiciary. The United States will now be unable to relinquish authority at Parwan until at least 2014, just as the last foreign troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan. “At this point, the Afghans don’t have the legal framework or the capacity to deal with violence being inflicted on the country by the insurgency,” said one U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. The existence of the U.S. military prison near Bagram Airfield, about 30 miles north of Kabul, has long been seen by Afghans as a sign of imperial overreach, and it has been singled out for criticism by President Hamid Karzai. The U.S. military has detained suspected insurgents at facilities in the area for nearly a decade. Most have been kept without trial, with less than a third of the prison’s detainees having been handed over for prosecution to an Afghan-run court. The prison population has grown rapidly as the U.S. military has expanded its operations in Afghanistan: Military officials say that over the past three years, the number of detainees has tripled. Parwan now holds 2,600 inmates, ranging from high-profile insurgents to those who have played a more peripheral role in the conflict.